Attempting to Snowshoe

ByMatt

Gold Center Trail

This past weekend, we had a nice day on my day off for once. So I took advantage of the sunshine and warm weather to get out and hike. Or so I thought.

I’ve been waiting to take my snowshoes out for a real winter trek, and the timing has been bad. I set my sights on the Gold Center trail, which leaves at the base of the mountains behind Clarkia and climbs its way up to the ridge just below Grandmother Mountain. I’ve always wanted to hike this trail, and winter seems like the best time to do this since the trailhead at Freezout Saddle is inaccessible.

The road out was rough as the snow was wet and almost slushy, but my Subaru made it with no trouble. Due to the past few days being so warm, I was expecting some dense, heavy snow that is fairly easy to walk on. But I found that while the snow was heavy, it was still very much unpacked, and even in snow shoes, I was having a tough time walking. Perhaps I should have brought the extra flotation tails with me after all, or perhaps I’m just woefully out of shape.

Deary has almost no snow left. Moscow and Pullman are dry. But Clarkia still has 2-3 feet, and the mountain elevations were getting fresh snow when we had rain at the bottom. That seemed promising. But I didn’t get out until after 1:00, so I had given up on making it to the ridge on this trip. I hadn’t expected the walk to be so difficult that it took me an our to go one mile on flat terrain.

Nevertheless, the snowy forest was beautiful, and my tracks were the first on this trail. Even the snowmobiles hadn’t gone this far in. The idea of getting to the summit of Grandmother Mountain in winter is somehow in reach, aided by the longer days. Still, it’s a 5+ mile, 3000 ft. ascent, so we’ll see. If I can float better on the snow, I may be able to endure the full 10 miles in one day. Otherwise, it may be summer challenge.

Gold Center Creek Grandmother Mountain

Similar Posts

  • |

    Small hikes near Moscow

    The end of the semester is a busy time, and that often means foregoing larger adventures for some smaller ones closer to home. In the last week, I’ve been trying to keep active and take advantage of the local trails. One of these trails is the Headwaters trail on the western end of Moscow Mountain. In my five years here, I’ve never hiked this trail despite its close proximity and popularity among hikers, runners, and mountain bikers. Yet when all of my friends say they were on Moscow Mountain, they almost always mean the Headwaters trail. Headwaters is a 5…

  • Dolly Sods, Revisited

    Dolly Sods Meadow, originally uploaded by Matthew Singer. In the fall, I visited West Virginia’s Dolly Sods with my parents. The foliage on the blueberry bushes was amazing, but the trees had not yet turned. I was planning to return a week later to backpack through the wilderness area during its peak foliage, but my car broke down and I was unable to make the journey. So I decided I’d make a spring visit instead. So, a week and a half ago, I did just that. I got together with Charlie (uvagolfer), another hiker and photographer I met on Flickr,…

  • 4th of July

    The celebration of our nation’s independence is a custom dating back all the way to the day the Continental Congress approved and signed the Declaration of Independence. The use of fireworks to celebrate the momentous and historic occasion also dates back to that time. As John Adams wrote to his wife: “The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of…

  • |

    Asotin Creek

    The Deep Gorge Originally uploaded by Matthew Singer While we were out in Idaho, we had the pleasure of taking a day and hiking. While the Moscow area was devoid of any snow this year, the surrounding mountains still had a bit of the white stuff, and forget about trying to get to the big mountains. It was winter, after all. I’m particularly excited about the nearly year-round hiking available out there. In the summer, I can retreat to the high country. In the winter, I can head low into the canyons where it stays pretty warm late into the…

  • |

    Evo-WIBO and the Olympic Peninsula

    I’m two weeks on this post, but forgive me because the last two weeks of the semester have been insane. The bi-annual northwest evolution conference, Evo-WIBO, occurred the last weekend of April. If you don’t remember, I attended the last meeting two years ago and presented a talk on the results of our selection experiment. This year, I presented a poster (my first) on the use of function-value trait analysis to analyze video tracking data. In short, we can use functions to describe behaviors over time and use more details in the data than if we were to simply distill…

  • Asotin Creek… sort of.

    The photo above was taken in February of 2010, my first visit to Asotin Creek. I’ve been back a couple of times as it is usually a reliable winter hike that is free of snow. I had never gone down in the spring when everything is green, and certainly not in the summer when temperatures can reach the 100 degree mark. So it was that Erin and I decided to spend a day down at Asotin Creek. The local wildflowers should be in bloom, and the hills might show hints of colors other than the drab brown of dried grass….